Does US Christian Zionism Only Have Ten Years Left?

There are two underlying sources of Zionism within the US, firstly of course the US Jewish community itself but also perhaps more importantly the Evangelical Christian community within the US which is much larger than the Jewish community. I owe it to fellow substacker Karl Sanchez for pointing out the importance of the Scofield Bible to US Evangelicals, the provenance of that document and its (mis?) reinterpretation of the Christian bible to place so much emphasis on Israel.

That Scofield bible, the first edition of which was published in 1909, contains the full text of the King James Bible but provides extensive commentary that seeks to (mis?) interpret the meaning of the words of that bible. The commentary was based on the dispensationalist (a term coined by Philip Mauro in 1928) beliefs developed by John Derby in the mid nineteenth century, as part of the Plymouth Brethren movement, that propose that history consists of multiple ages (“dispensations”) during which God acts with the chosen people in specific ways.  Central to this is the need for the restoration of an Israeli state to help fulfil what is seen as bible prophecy. The ages are:

·      Innocence: Adam and The Garden of Eden

·      Conscience: Ends with the Great Flood

·      Human Government: Ends with the Tower of Babel and the dispersion of humanity

·      Patriarchal Rule: Ends with the refusal to enter Canaan and 40 years in the wilderness

·      Law: From Moses to the Crucifixion

·      Grace: From the Crucifixion to Rapture of the Church, the Wrath of God, and the Great Tribulation.

·      Millennial Kingdom: 1,000 years of the reign of Christ on earth, based in Jerusalem and ending with God’s judgement.

The Scofield Bible proposes that we are now living in the time of Grace, waiting for the Rapture – an event when all dead Christians and currently alive Christians will rise into heaven together while the remaining human population of the Earth will endure seven years of severe hardship; known as the Great Tribulation which is the Wrath of God and includes the death of two thirds of the Jewish population (if that belief is not antisemitic what is?); a God-driven second Shoa. US Society is unique among the richer nations for its religiosity and the everyday nature of discussions of the apocalypse:

Much of American culture is already primed for final battle. There is a very deep strain of apocalyptic fantasy in fundamentalist Christianity, Armageddon may be horrible, but it is not to be feared, because it will be the harbinger of eternal bliss for the elect and eternal damnation for their foes. (O’Toole, quoted in Akenson, The Americanization Of The Apocalypse, p. 436)

The Scofield Bible was written by Cyrus Scofield, a disgraced politician, drunk and probable forger who had abandoned his wife (who later divorced him with the court ruling that he was unfit for the custody of children) and two daughters, and never provided for them. At the age of 36 he was converted to evangelical Christianity quite possibly whilst in jail and became a minister at the age of 40 (1883). He later claimed to have a Divinity Degree, but there is no record of any such award. Some authors (e.g. Joseph M. Canfield with The Incredible Scofield and His Book available at the internet archive) note the ability of Scofield and other dispensationalist scholars to live beyond their means and identify the benefits of a biblical interpretation that my help keep the general population focus on bible prophecy rather than the elite’s exorbitant wealth in an incredibly unequal society. Scofield’s inclusion into the extremely elite New York Lotos Club which was supported by some of the richest men in the US, including the head of the US Zionist movement Samuel Untermyer, lends some support to this view. We see such manipulation of US religious beliefs in the post-WW2 involvement of US elites in creating the business-friendly Prosperity Gospel and the reinvigoration of religious practice in contrast to a “godless communism” (see Kevin M. Kruse, One Nation Under God).

The role of Henry Frowde the manager of the London office of the Oxford University Press as well as its publisher, an Exclusive Brother of the Brethren, was central to the publishing and success of the Scofield Bible. After Scofield died the Oxford University Press issued a 1967 (the year of the Six Day War) update entitled The New Scofield Bible which included specific additions that greatly increased the support for the state of Israel and its rights to take the Palestinian lands; “close to an endorsement of US foreign policy on the state of Israel” (Donald Akenson, The Americanization Of The Apocalypse, p. 435). The Scofield Bible teaches the notion that Gentiles are ‘blessed in association with Israel’, and that God supports the stealing of the Palestinian lands to create Israel and the demolition of the al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in the Muslim world, to rebuild The Temple (a core belief of the most extremist Zionists); also the return of Jewish religious sacrifices.

We must understand the geopolitical milieu of the period to fully understand how the Scofield Bible fits into a wider set of events. It was published in 1909, but truly took off after a revised edition (by a number of authors including Scofield) was published in 1917. The first Zionist Congress had been held in 1897 and the Balfour Declaration produced in 1917, after which Britain gained a mandate over the lands of Palestine in 1921 and Jewish emigration to Palestine greatly increased.

As with the plans of the UK, the state of Israel could serve the US as a settler colonial outpost of Empire, an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” within the oil-rich Arab region. It has also been extremely useful over the years for providing security service personnel to carry out Empire’s dirty work in so many cases, allowing the US to remain aloof from such things. The state of Israel came into being in 1948, while the President of the US was the deeply religious Truman who had served as a Shabbos for his Jewish neighbours. His successor, President Eisenhower (“Bible Student” background, a precursor to the Jehovah’s Witness movement) was also deeply religious, adding the phrase “under god” to the Pledge of Allegiance. Lyndon Johnson was Baptist, Nixon’s spiritual advisor was the evangelical Rev. Billy Graham, with the only exception during this period being the Catholic President Kennedy. Evangelical protestantism became the basis of the religious movement which became aligned with the Republican Party and holds outsized sway in US politics through such things as the yearly National Prayer Breakfast which every President since Eisenhower has attended and lobby groups such as the Fellowship (subject of a documentary on Netflix).

The active Anglo-Saxon elite support for a new bible that would help to redirect the gaze of the citizens away from gross inequality and the wealth of that elite, while also serving to garner support for its foreign policy goals with respect to the creation of the state of Israel, fits well within Gramsci’s notion a cultural hegemony that serves to rationalize and legitimize the rule of the elite and its modes of exploitation. As does the post-WW2 active support for a prosperity gospel that sidelined the teachings of Christ that were antithetical to capitalism and supported many aspects of the New Deal. The evangelical movement within the US supports both dispensationalism and the notions put forth in the prosperity gospel. The wide-ranging adoption of these beliefs by a significant proportion of the US population was of great benefit to the Imperialist capitalist US elite and the state of Israel.

The problem for that elite, and for Israel, is that Christian religiosity is in decline in the US, including evangelical Christian religiosity. According to the Pew Research Center, from 2007 to 2021, while Catholicism (which consider the Scofield Bible and dispensationalism in general to be heretical) has remained at generally the same level (21%), protestant worship has fallen from 52% of the US population to 40% and born again/evangelical protestant worship specifically has fallen from 30% to 24% (as with Catholicism, other types of protestant worship do not support either dispensationalism or the prosperity gospel). That is still nearly ¼ of all US citizens believing in such religious ideas, but that 24% is a point within a process of ongoing decline. In the same period people with no defined religion increased from 16% to 29% of US citizens. Pointing to an ongoing decline in religiosity Pew found that between 2020 and 2021 the share of citizens that considered religion to be important in their lives fell 4% to 41%, with religious attendance and belief in God lower in younger age groups, and evangelical Protestantism less represented in the younger age groups.

This has resulted in a serious generation gap with respect to views on Israel among US citizens, together with a strong party alignment due to older citizens and evangelical Christians tending to align more with the Republican Party; Democratic voter sympathies now being more with the Palestinians 49% to 38%. Even within the US Jewish community, there is significantly less support for Israel among younger generations. Of course, politicians and the rich tend to be of older generations, as with both President Biden (two Jewish daughters in law and a Jewish son in law), ex-President Trump (daughter married to a prominent Zionist) and Mike Johnson the new evangelical Baptist speaker of the House of Representatives.

What will the US population look like in 2035? Will the born again/evangelical share of the population be down to perhaps 18%, with those with no defined religion above 40%, and Democratic voters overwhelmingly siding with the Palestinians? In addition to the trend amongst the young to have more socialist ideas. It would appear that the US elite may not only have a closing wind of opportunity to deal with the challenge from China, but also with their ability to maintain their cultural hegemony at home. A challenge which Israeli leaders may also be cognizant of; they would only have to view TikTok to realize this. As Gramsci notes, with loss of cultural hegemony tends to come more authoritarian and fascist regimes. The disconnect between the younger generations and an increasingly authoritarian US state and institutions has been shown in the repeated cases of US universities banning and terminating pro-Palestinian clubs even if they are full of Jewish students!

The older generation executives at Marvel have now realized the problem with planning a movie with an Israeli superhero, with such movies having a generally younger audience, and have now delayed it.

And now for something completely different …

The widespread and deep corruption of the US political and administrative courtier class sometimes bubbles to the surface. As with US Republican representative George Santos, whose corruption has been so blatant not even the House Committee on Ethics could sweep it under the rug; insider dealing on knowledge gained as a representative of the people is fine, but blatantly using campaign funds for personal expenses is not.

In other news President Biden seems not to be getting held to account for storing confidential US government documents in boxes in his garage, nor for he and his son’s so obvious corruption:

The Donald Trump (standard capitalist elite member and Zionist) show trials continue rumbling onwards. For one example, even I know that the tax assessment for a property and the property’s true value have very little in common, the use of the former to claim that Trump committed fraud is utterly lawless behaviour by the courts. For another, Biden’s issues with US confidential documents (as well as many other ex-office holders, such as Hillary Clinton’s infamous email server antics), for which there are no charges, appear to be worse than Trumps. The attempts to claim that Trump incited the January 6^th Capitol Hill incident, which was doused with government undercover operatives and “failures” to heed repeated warnings, together with wall to wall propagandizing coverage, also shows the utter lawlessness within the US judiciary. We of course also have the antics of a. Supreme Court judge being so obviously bribed by expensive trips etc. by a billionaire. Stalin would be impressed with the show trials and propaganda, but not so much with the corruption.

The US state institutions, all three wings, are beholden to the capitalist elite, other concentrated sources of power such as the Christian Zionists, and the wanton self-interest of the courtier class (paralleling the corruption of the administrative-class Eunuchs in ancient China that preceded the collapse of the central state); certainly not “we the people”.

Perhaps younger generations that are much less religious and more open to socialist ideas than the older generations can provide an increasing offset to these areas of concentrated power over time? Given the very immediate challenges of US foreign aggression risking wider conflagrations and the existential threat of climate change to modern human civilization, they may already be out of time. That is why I see the only real chance of change in the time required coming from the BRINCISSTAN (Belarus, Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, Iraq, Syria and the “Stans”) coalition.